Hélio Castroneves posing with the Borg-Warner Trophy after winning the 2009 Indianapolis 500.

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Castroneves was involved in motor sports from a young age with the support of his father, an auto dealer in São Paulo who owned a stock-car racing team. As a teenager, Castroneves won a national go-kart racing title in Brazil before advancing in 1994 to Formula Three auto racing in Europe. He attracted the attention of Brazilian racing great Emerson Fittipaldi, who helped him to get started on the Championship Auto Racing Teams IndyCar circuit in 1998. After signing in 2000 with Penske Racing, one of the powerhouse teams in the IndyCar Series, Castroneves quickly became one of the team’s dominant drivers. In 2001 he collected his first Indianapolis 500 title, edging Penske teammate Gil de Ferran by 1.74 seconds for the win.

Castroneves repeated as Indianapolis 500 champion in 2002, becoming the first driver since racing legendAl Unser in 1970–71 to win the race in consecutive years. He was also the youngest driver ever to accomplish the back-to-back feat and the first to win the classic race in each of his two initial attempts. Castroneves took second place in the Indianapolis 500 in 2003 and finished third in 2007. By this time the immensely affable Brazilian had become one of the Indy Racing League’s most popular drivers.

In 2008 a U.S. federal indictment alleged that Castroneves had helped to create a Panama-based shell company with the intention of avoiding paying taxes on some $5 million income. Castroneves, however, steadfastly maintained his innocence, and he was acquitted on six counts of income-tax evasion—charges that could have netted him six years in prison—in April 2009. Five weeks after his acquittal, he raced in the Indianapolis 500, where, starting on the pole, he surrendered the lead after seven laps but rallied late to beat the second-place finisher, Englishman Dan Wheldon, by 1.98 seconds. His victory made him the ninth driver in Indianapolis 500 history to take the checkered flag three times.

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